Gadre Earns IPSN Ph.D. Forum Best Presentation Award

Akshay Gadre, an electrical and computer engineering Ph.D. student, has received the Best Presentation Award at the 19th ACM/IEEE Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN) Ph.D. Forum in recognition of his work on Low-Power Wide-Area Networking. Held virtually this year, IPSN is a leading annual forum on research in networked sensing and control, broadly defined. IPSN brings together researchers from academia, industry, and government to present and discuss recent advances in both theoretical and experimental research. Its scope includes signal and image processing, information and coding theory, databases and information management, distributed algorithms, networks and protocols, wireless communications, collaborative objects and the Internet of Things, machine learning, mobile and social sensing, and embedded systems design.

Gadre’s presentation, "Low-Power Wide-Area Networks: Connect, Sense and Secure," showcased his thesis work on pushing PHY-layer functions of LP-WAN devices to the cloud, improving their connectivity, sensing capability and security in the urban ecosystem. Advised by Swarun Kumar, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and in collaboration with Anthony Rowe and Bob Iannucci, their work enables energy-efficient connectivity, evolved sensing capability and enhanced security for power-starved low-power wireless devices at scale.

"The Ph.D. Forum at IPSN 2020 was a great experience and provided me an opportunity to receive constructive and critical feedback from experts in the sensor networking community across the globe,” said Gadre. “This award is a great boost to our grand vision on enabling connectivity at long range to everything that can connect to the internet and confidence in my ability to communicate it to the community."